120722 Bhakti Is Surrender In Love Not Surrender By Force.mp3 (53 minutes, 12.3 MB)

This is a Sunday feast lecture from a few days after the divine disappearance of Srila Sridhar Maharaj in the summer of 2012.

An excerpt of the first few minutes:

We’re very fortunate to be able to come under his [Srila Bhakti Rakshak Sridhar Dev-Goswami Maharaj’s] divine shelter and that of Srila Govinda Maharaj. We really consider this will give success to our otherwise feeble attempts at gaining some entrance into the plane of dedication, the divine plane. Srila Govinda Maharaj once told me, “I am never hopeless. I am always hopeful.” It is very good to have the association of somebody like that who always is seeing the hopeful side of things and the intrinsic worth of everyone.

Srila Sridhar Maharaj said, “Everything is known according to it’s potential….” We tend to see things statically, at least I’ll say for myself I tend to see things statically. But that is not correct vision. Everything in this world is in a state of change but we don’t see that.  We go to the ocean and we see the tide coming in and we see the rocks that are worn with lines over them… by the effect of time. Normally we would think, “How can water wear away stone?” but over time everything is changing and everything is worn away. In this way we can say on one level we are being consumed. Krishna says “Time I am.” He is the consumer or destroyer of all worlds and in this material existence that’s just a fact….